


Who watch you fall

by Pythia (Mythichistorian)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 06:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4992970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythichistorian/pseuds/Pythia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living after loss can be hard.  Even for the dead …</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who watch you fall

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ann, who provided valuable comment and suitable murmurings of encouragement.
> 
> This was written for Headrush100’s ficathon, with inspiration words picked from a proffered list. My words were: lifted, book, weakness, ordinary, offer, relief. They’re all in there. Somewhere.
> 
> The story is set just after Buffy has taken her leap from Glory's tower, sacrificing herself to save her sister - and the world. The title is taken from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, which is quoted in full at the end of the tale.

The room held three weary bodies, but only one of them housed an entirely human soul. An extremely weary one, at that. Weary enough for the three of them, Giles thought, staring down at Dawn’s tear-streaked face, her complexion almost as pale as that of the Vampire who cradled her sleeping form. 

_How far can one soul stretch?_ he wondered, watching the two unlikely companions curled around each other as if their closeness were the only thing holding them together. Perhaps it was. Perhaps the Key, blood shed to release its mystic energy, had begun to revert to its true form, up there on the tower. Perhaps it was only the vampire’s determined will that had halted that dissolution, keeping her anchored in the world. The monks hadn’t just sent Dawn to Buffy, they’d _created_ her from Buffy.  
And Buffy was gone, her sacrifice made to save – not the world – but the sister she’d never had, the lie made flesh.

Giles sighed, moving to drag a blanket off the end of his couch and drape it over the two sleeping figures. While he mourned his Slayer’s loss and regretted the necessity of actions taken – both hers and his – the Watcher inside him could not deny that her choices had, in the end, been the inevitable outcome of her destiny.

For once, the chosen one had not died in vain. She’d not faltered in combat, or fallen to a stronger foe. She’d given her life, offered it to the world without hesitation or regret.

_Going out in a blaze of glory …_

His lips quirked, acknowledging the irony of the phrase, and then quivered as a surge of emotion swept across him. Dawn was fast asleep, exhausted by her own emotional storm. Spike was as dead to the world as any corpse might be, his energies as shattered as his body. There was no-one who’d see the tears, but the Watcher fought them anyway, refusing to succumb to the weakness that battered at his soul. If he fell now, he’d fall forever, tumbling into grief and despair as certainly as Buffy had tumbled from the tower. He had to be strong. Not for himself, but for the young woman who’d sought sanctuary in a dead man’s arms – and, strange as it might seem, for the dead man, who had acquitted himself with surprising nobility for a soulless, homicidal demon.

An innocent, and a monster – and the only man in the room who was certain of his soul was equally certain of the stain it now carried; the weight of murder, the sacrifice _he_ had chosen to make.

Too much death, too much loss, too much sorrow. The price of the world had been too high.

Giles sighed a second time, taking a few short steps across the room to sink into the welcome support of the nearest comfortable chair. The events of the day had carried him for a while, serving to numb his senses and hold the protests of his body at bay. Some of that numbness was still there, a fragile fortification holding back the storm that had already devasted his heart and was currently threatening to shatter the rest of him into irreparable pieces. But a vague sense of feeling had begun to creep into the periphery of his awareness – and the most dominant sensations currently warring for his attention were exhaustion and pain.

 _Serious_ pain. Somewhere in all the hubbub – the whirlwind experience of making sure Buffy’s body was safely secured, of making sure that Tara was safely settled in Willow’s arms, of checking that Anya and Xander were capable of taking care of each other and of bringing Dawn and her inseparable guardian to the suspect haven of his home – he’d managed to pull apart half of the stitches that had been busy holding him together. The bandages beneath his shirt were soaked with blood, and the ache in his side was throbbing with an intensity that was hard to ignore.

A part of him wanted to simply sink into oblivion. To let go, and fall away, into the darkness. The rest of him was gritting his teeth and using the pain to keep him safely anchored in the here-and-now. Sleep was out of the question. The moment he closed his eyes he knew he’d be back there – back at the foot of that damned tower, watching a slender figure take an elegant dive into eternity. 

It wasn’t a place he wanted to go – and it was the one place he suspected he’d never escape from, a memory that would haunt him forever. 

He reached out and carefully lifted a battered book from the coffee table; the journal he’d pulled from his shelves almost without thinking, acting on the habits of a lifetime. _Why didn't the Watchers keep fuller accounts of it?_ she’d asked. _The journals just stop._

He’d thought he’d known. He’d _thought_ he’d explained. But he hadn’t. Not really. It wasn’t pain that he wrestled with as he sat there, the journal open on his lap, the pen poised and the page remaining stubbornly blank. Pain was something you could face, something you could endure – like the deep nagging throb of his abdomen, easily recognised and almost as easily dismissed. 

This was – this was something else, something so fundamental, so primal, that there was nothing in his vocabulary with which he could describe it. Nothing, no matter which language he tried to call to mind.

_If I could only find the words, then I could write it all down …_

The thought and the tune rose out of nowhere, swirling round his disjointed thoughts with bitter irony. The plaintive cry of the songsmith – the almost clichéd relic of a time he’d left so far behind it seemed another lifetime altogether – battered at his emotional defenses with mocking cruelty.

_If I could only find a voice I would speak…_

There _were_ no words. Nothing to write and nothing to say. Just an empty, hollow feeling where his heart should have been.

“Bloody hell, Watcher. You’re a cold-hearted bastard, and no mistake. Writing it down? Writing it _all_ down? Don’t know how you’ve got the guts.”

Giles looked up. Spike was standing right in front of him, looking rumpled and battered in his tee-shirt and jeans. There were livid bruises on his face and smears of blood painted across his skin. Some of it was probably Dawn’s. The Watcher felt decidedly sick at the sight.

“I haven’t,” he said bleakly, glancing across to the couch for the reassurance of the teenager’s still-sleeping form, curled under the warmth of the blanket. “I _promised_ her I would.” His explanation was shaky, his voice cracking on the words. “I promised her. But I can’t.” He looked up to find the vampire looking back with sudden, wide-eyed sympathy. “I just can’t …” 

Spike stared at him for a moment, wary consideration slowly folding down into a tight-lipped frown. “ _Fuck,_ ” he muttered. “Listen up, you great steaming nit.” The vampire reached out and plucked the pen from nerveless fingers, tossing it away. The journal followed with a rustle of paper and a muffled thump as it hit the floor. “You’re in no fit state to do anything right now, let alone trying to be the bleeding noble Watcher, doing his sodding duty, no matter what. So you made a promise? _I_ made a frigging promise and now I’m bloody well stuck with it. Stuck protecting an innocent kid that don’t know what a fucking _monster_ I am. And if I’m gonna protect her, I’m bloody well gonna have to take care of you – because you’re the closest thing to a parent she’s got, and I _am_ a monster, so you’re gonna have to be around to keep us both in line. Right?”

Giles blinked at him, wondering when the world had got so fuzzy round the edges – both morally _and_ literally. “I-I suppose that’s … one way to look at it,” he managed after a moment. “Although …” The weight of events was catching up with him. The numbness had given way to a persistent, throbbing ache that permeated every inch of him. His left hand – empty now of the tool of his trade – itched and burned with memory, as if the warmth it had smothered still lingered on his skin. “Going by the events of this evening …there’s only one monster in this room – and it isn’t you.”

It was Spike’s turn to blink, his face creasing in brief bemusement as he tried to make sense of what he’d heard. “You what?” he questioned with a snort of semi-laughter. “ _You,_ a frigging monster? Don’t make me laugh. You’re about as scary as a stuffed bunny rabbit right now. Though I guess that might give Anya a fright …”

“I killed him,” Giles admitted softly, staring down at his hands and wondering why he felt the need to confess. “Ben,” he explained, since Spike was frowning in confusion. “He saved my life and I killed him. Because I had to. Because _she_ couldn’t …” The thought of Buffy, of the way she’d walked away from her battle with Glory, shivered through him like a stab of pain. 

“Oh,” the vampire said, giving him an odd look. Was it pity – or respect? It was hard to tell. “Right. So we really _don’t_ have to worry about Glory showing up all pissed off and mad as hell.”

“No.” The Watcher heaved a tired sigh. “At least – I don’t think so.”

“Well, all right then. Good for you. That’s what Watchers are for, isn’t it? Tying up the loose ends? Dealing with stuff that … needs to be done.”

“Yes,” Giles acknowledged in that same weary tone. “I suppose it is.” He paused, throwing another glance at the slender figure curled up on his couch. “I told her – told _Buffy -_ ” He nearly choked on her name, on the sense of betrayal that still lurked behind their final hours together. “I told her we might have to … kill Dawn.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed and he too glanced in the young woman’s direction. “Yeah,” he drawled. “Can’t say I’m too surprised. You really can be a cold blooded bastard if you need to be. _Christ,_ ” he continued, swinging round to stare across the room at nothing in particular. “Do the bleeding powers that be get their jollies outta this? Making her choose? Getting you to do all their dirty work? Me. I like the kill, but … _Hell,_ I dunno. Is this what saving the world’s all about? Murder and bloody sacrifice?” 

“Yes.” Giles leaned back in his chair and tipped his head back, closing his eyes and feeling the world sway around him, seeing her fall, again and again. “At least … it was today …”

“Maybe you _should_ become a monster, mate.” The Watcher opened his eyes again to find Spike crouched down beside him, studying him with a pensive look. “Easier to live that way. No conscience gnawing at your soul. No second thoughts, or guilty regrets. I could do it, you know? Turn you, right here and now. Wouldn’t take much, the way you’re bleeding right now. Easy enough to take a taste without setting the chip off and then … well, you know how the rest of it works. Whadya say?”

There was no guile in the vampire’s eyes, no eagerness to feed or ambition to ensnare; it was an oddly honest offer, a means to end the anguish of guilt, the emptiness of grief and the persistence of pain. For a moment – just a moment – the temptation tugged at him, offering him an easy way out, an escape from responsibility. 

An escape from everything …

“Sod off,” Giles growled, packing an entire lifetime of self disgust into the words. “Bloody wanker …”

Spike chuckled, heaving himself back to his feet with a surprisingly lithe movement for a dead man who’d been thrown from a tower only a few hours before. “That’s a relief,” he declared. “Thought you were tempted for a moment.” He paused, allowing a wry smile to curl his lips. “Maybe you are,” he said softly. “But you know better, right?”

“What is it in the words _sod_ off you don’t understand, Spike?” There was a snap of irritation in the muttered growl, but Giles lacked the energy to sustain it for long. “Do you want me to draw pictures?”

“No thanks, mate.” Spike grinned at the thought. “I’ve seen your artwork. It’s worse than my frigging poetry. Might ask for practical demonstration, but I don’t think you’re up to it. Not even sure I am. Ah, bloody hell, Rupes.” His bantering tone gave way to a weary sigh. “This is one sodding mess, and no mistake.” He scrubbed at his face, then ran his hand back through his hair, leaving a trail of tangled tufts behind. “I feel like I got run over by a number nine bus – and you’re as white as a sheet and bleeding your guts out over the furniture. By all rights I oughta be down on my knees slurping up the overspill before it goes to waste in the carpet.”

The Watcher actually laughed at that – a halfhearted huff of sound that was more hysteria than amusement. “I doubt I could stop you if you did,” he said, wearily lifting his head so that he could glance down at the suspiciously large stain that now darkened his clothing. It wasn’t quite as bad as Spike was suggesting, but even so … He snorted again, which almost certainly was hysteria – and probably due to increasing exhaustion and blood loss. It would certainly explain his sudden lightheadedness. “Maybe you should,” he suggested with ironic generosity, tipping his head back with a weary sigh. “At least that way one of us would get some benefit out of it …”

Spike chuckled. “Yeah, ain’t that the truth. But – like I said – I made a promise, and I mean to keep it. Which probably means turning down your magnanimous offer and doing something to keep the rest of the red stuff _inside_ your skin where it belongs.” 

Giles couldn’t argue with that. He wasn’t actually certain that he had strength left to argue, even if he wanted to. Even breathing seemed to be more effort than it was worth.

“Right.” The vampire glanced round for a moment, then frowned, clearly coming to some sort of decision. “I’ll just whip the Bit up to bed and tuck her in for the night – doubt she’s gonna stir for hours yet – then I’ll dig out some bandages, patch you back together and get you settled on the couch. Don’t think you’d make it up the stairs,” he explained, “even if you wanted to move that far – and while Dawn’s no weight, there’s no way I’m going to try lugging your bleeding carcass any distance tonight. Even vampires have their limits.”

“Quite.” Giles wasn’t at all put out by the implication of insult. It was clear that Spike was almost as exhausted as he was – even if the vampire was determinedly trying to hide the fact. It wasn’t just the physical punishment he’d taken; the weight of grief lay heavily over them both, draping them with melancholy, with a weariness that smothered the soul.

Well, his soul, at least. Perhaps the emotions that gnawed at the demon were gathered in the place where the man’s soul used to be, a deep well of misery and despair, 

“Okay,” the vampire was saying. “I won’t be a mo. You’d better start getting your kit off while I’m gone … top half of it, anyway. Strip off and I’ll … bring ya down something clean for later. Still keep the first aid stuff in the bathroom?”

“Uh … yes.” The conversation had just moved into the surreal. Had Spike just asked him to _strip?_ Giles frowned, rewinding the sentences as the vampire moved away to scoop the slumbering teenager off the couch. It was clearly evident just how befuddled he’d become, because he took two goes to translate the request into something that made sense. “Ah,” he realised with sudden comprehension and began gingerly easing himself upright as Spike headed up stairs towards the loft. _Strip._ As in – peel away blood soaked clothing so that his would-be nursemaid could redress his wound. Which was a pretty good idea in principle, but – right at that moment – a challenge almost as daunting as being required to climb Mount Everest with his hands tied behind his back. 

He just about managed _upright,_ started to go for _standing up_ – and then found himself sliding off the seat of the chair and down onto his knees. They met the floor with a bone-shuddering thump and a jolt of pain speared through his side with almost as much savagery as the lance which had caused the wound in the first place.

“Oh, _bugger,_ ” he muttered, groping for the support of the coffee table and finding it just in time to stop the rest of him from joining his knees on the floor. His grab knocked over the decorative chalice that had been standing on the polished wood and for some reason his mind threw up some nonsense about the Fisher King and the dolorous wound … and it was at that point that he realised that the physical pain was nothing, could be nothing, compared to the wound that had been ripped in his heart.

A wound not even the Holy Grail itself could heal …

“Come on, Rupes,” Spike’s voice murmured, somewhere close, yet impossibly distant. There were cold hands on his body, easing blood-soaked fabric away from his skin, unpeeling him like a rotting orange, exposing his heart and his soul to the merciless air. “Easy does it, mate.”

Those same cold hands eased him down into the support of something soft; Giles blinked and fought for focus, wondering how he’d managed to get from the floor to the couch without registering the journey in between. “Did I … pass out?” he wondered, drawing in a sharp breath as tentative fingers disturbed the blood caked bandages that were holding him together.

“Zoned out, more like,” Spike muttered, giving the bleeding wound another cautious poke and eliciting another short gasp of pain. The vampire rocked back on his heels, his features briefly shifting as the chip inside his head fired in ironic reciprocation. “ _Bugger._ Sorry,” he apologised, pressing his hand to his head and scrubbing at the spot between his eyes. “I’m not exactly good at this stuff. First aid and field medicine. Not my line at all.”

“No,” Giles breathed, watching him in bemusement. “I don’t suppose it is. Spike – why are you doing this?”

“I _told_ you.” The growl was more anguished than angry. “Made a sodding promise, didn’t I? Christ, you think I wanna be here? I oughta be – snacking down on some painted-up tarty bit down at the docks, or – amusing m’self pulling fingernails offa some schoolkid or other … At the very _least,_ shacked up with a decent bottle o’something and a parcel of kittens to pass the time. Not … not … trying to patch together something that’s all broken up like glass and bleeding inside and out …”

He sat back with a thump, his sudden outburst leaving him drained and shaking. He wasn’t exactly crying, but grief was etched across his features and his shoulders heaved as he tried to fit his emotions back into the box they’d just escaped from. Giles gingerly inched himself up against the cushions and stared at the distraught figure sitting on his rug. He wasn’t entirely sure if Spike had been referring to him, or to himself with that last remark, but he suspected it applied to the both of them equally well. Buffy’s fall had shattered them; a hammer blow of grief and loss that had reduced the two of them to little more than broken shards and jagged edges. Time, it was said, heals all wounds – but he’d been trained as an archaeologist and he knew. Knew that, no matter how carefully, how delicately you might reassemble a smashed vessel, the cracks always remained. 

_All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again …_

“You know,” he offered softly, feeling a sudden and disconcerting sense of empathy with the vampire. “If you … um … finish what you’ve started, I’ll only be bleeding on the inside, which I’m sure you’ll find much easier to cope with. And I can’t manage kittens – and _please,_ I don’t want to know what you do with them – but I can manage a decent bottle of something. Maybe two.”

Spike looked up, an odd look chasing across his face. “That right?” he asked, cocking his head to one side and studying him with a suspicious frown. 

“Yes.” Giles had a sneaking suspicion he’d regret a lot of this in the morning – but that was the least of his concerns at the moment, and the little self-reproach he might earn tonight would be nothing compared to the weight of guilt and remorse that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He knew that the bottom of a bottle was no place to seek respite – but right now the opportunity for oblivion it offered seemed the most desirable place in the world.

And at least he wouldn’t be drinking alone …

“There’s a bottle or two of Glentauchers stashed at the bottom of my wardrobe,” he confided wearily. “I put them there when you moved in and … I’ve not found a suitable occasion to unearth them since.”

“Bloody hell,” Spike murmured, giving him that odd look again. It was a look of respect – a somewhat taken-aback, _I’ve managed to surprise him_ respect, but respect, nevertheless. “You spent half of that summer getting yourself wasted on 10-year-old Scotch – and you never even _touched_ the 15-year-old stuff? What kind of occasion were you saving it for?”

Memory struck like a knife, twisting inside his heart with savagery. The whisky had arrived the day that Buffy had asked about the diaries; his family had sent him a care package stuffed with English chocolate, packets of Jaffa cakes, jars of Bovril and many other things that had stirred a sense of helpless homesickness – and the bottles had been packed in the bottom of the hamper, wrapped with loving care and a note penned in his father’s meticulous hand. For special occasions, it had read. And that day, there had only been one particular occasion that sprang to mind. 

“This one,” he admitted faintly. Had it been a maudlin gesture, or a ghoulish one? Laying away expensive scotch so that he would have something suitable with which to mark his Slayer’s passing? Knowing that she _would_ pass? 

Praying that he’d never _ever_ have to drink it?

Spike’s eyes went wide. “ _Jeesus,_ ” he hissed, glancing away with shiver of pain. “I’d hate to live in that head of yours, Rupes, I really would. But – yeah. I can see … well, only the best for _her,_ right?”

“Quite.”

The silence stretched for a moment, each man lost in thought, drowning in memory and loss. Giles let himself slowly slide back to the support of the pillows, tipping his head back so that he could stare at the ceiling – and at the images beyond it: images of a swaying tower and the coruscating brilliance that heralded the end of the world …

“Well then,” Spike announced with determined briskness. “Let’s not waste the night, when we’ve got some bloody good liquor waiting to do it for us. Course,” he went on, moving forward to lay a cold palm on fevered skin. “I could just … call the paramedics and get them to fix you up, but … they’d probably whisk you back into hospital and leave me with the whisky. And as I know damn well you’d be after me with a stake if I so much as _touched_ it without you being here … I guess,” he concluded, “I’ll just have to do the best I can.”

The touch of his hand was oddly comforting, soothing the heat and somehow easing a little of the pain. “You could just leave me to bleed to death,” Giles pointed out, oddly certain that this was the one thing the vampire _wouldn’t_ do. “And drink the whisky afterwards.”

“Yeah, right.” Spike’s chuckle was amused, not indignant. “And have the whelp and Red and Glinda on my case? No thanks. I’d rather put up with your glares and your put-downs than … have them haunt me afterwards,” he finished, half under his breath. “’Sides, the Bit’d never forgive me. Can’t disappoint the Bit.”

The words were unspoken, but they were there, hanging in the air between them with the desperation of denial; a prayer for mercy that was too little, and far, far too late. 

_She’s the only thing we have left …_

“Don’t sod about, Spike. I’m hurting here.” The snap wasn’t angry, just fraught; the subject they were skirting round was too close, too raw for any detailed consideration. The admission was also true, on all kinds of levels - but if the vampire recognised just how unguarded that admission had been, he didn’t acknowledge it; he merely nodded, accepting it – and the rebuke behind it - at face value.

“Sorry, mate,” he apologised. “This won’t take long.”

It didn’t.

Spike's touch was surprising gentle – which wasn’t that surprising, considering the punishment he risked every time he stirred a protest of pain – but he was also remarkably efficient in his ministrations. It seemed barely moments before the wound in his side was cleaned, the worst of the damaged stitches removed and the torn flesh firmly sealed with fresh gauze and tape. It was a little disconcerting to catch your attentive medic licking your blood from his fingers when he thought you weren’t looking, but while the look Spike gave him was momentarily sheepish, it wasn’t at all guilty - and the man in him pushed the outraged Watcher to one side and let the moment pass with a wry smile.

“All done,” Spike announced, tucking the end of the last crepe bandage into place and studying the result with satisfaction. “Bit of a bodge, but it should all hold. Here we go …”

The vampire had hauled him upright in order to apply the final layer of bandages. Now he helped him lie down again, supporting him as he was lowered back onto the yielding softness of his couch. Giles tensed as the movement stirred remnants of pain, and then forced himself to relax, conscious that his reactions might trigger the vampire’s chip. He had no wish to punish Spike for good deeds done, and he waited until he felt the dead hands leave his skin before he succumbed to the shudder of distress his body was busy demanding. 

“Thanks, mate.” His moment of chivalry had not gone unnoticed; Spike’s murmur of gratitude was offhand and dismissive – as was the peremptory way he dragged the blanket over his patient and tucked it in with a few brusque touches. But both the words and the gesture were genuine enough – as was the response Giles found for them both. 

“Thank _you,_ ” he said, and meant it.

Spike quirked an ironic smile. “Don’t,” he advised a little bitterly. “You got enough to regret on your plate without adding me into the mix. I’m only here for the beer. And the whisky. Bottom of the wardrobe, right?”

“Left-hand side, right at the back. Under the boot rack.”

“Gotcha.” The vampire half turned away, then looked back with a wary frown. “I’m – umm – not gonna find the door into Narnia up there, or anything, am I?”

“What?” Giles blinked at him. “Good Lord, no. At least … I-I hope not. It is … possible, that the events earlier this evening have opened a few doors that might have better been left shut but … I doubt you’ll find one in my wardrobe.” 

“Yeah?.” Spike thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, right. _Whisky,_ ” he reminded himself firmly, and strode out of sight, leaving the Watcher staring after him with a decidedly bemused expression on his face. 

_This isn’t real,_ his mind was insisting, using the entirely bizarre turn of conversation as evidence that – somehow, some when – he’d slipped from reality into a nightmarish dream state. One in which a totally soulless vampire tortured him with solicitous first aid in order to get him to reveal where he’d hidden the good whisky. One in which he’d been wounded body and soul, cursed with a weariness so deep it had settled into his bones. One in which his beloved Slayer lay dead and broken in her training room at the back of the Magic Box, reverently wrapped in layers of pure, white silk …

“Oh dear _lord,_ ” Giles breathed, feeling the shattered pieces of his heart shift and crack, its broken fragments splintering inside him with an anguish too great to bear. It was a nightmare – but it was one he could neither escape, nor deny. It was all true. All too real. 

He lifted his hand so he could scrub wearily at the weight of pain behind his eyes – and paused, his palm resting against his face while he wondered, in all seriousness, if he could press down and hold in his own breath; if he could gift himself with the same stillness that he had forced on a lost soul, not so long ago … 

“You wanna do the honours, Rupes?”

Giles jerked his hand down with an almost guilty start; Spike was making himself comfortable on the rug, holding out a bottle with one hand while he tugged a cigarette out of the packet he held in the other. There was a second bottle sitting on the floor beside him – along with the now-battered chalice, which was either intended as a totally inappropriate receptacle for the whisky, or an equally inappropriate ashtray. The vampire was busy lighting up the tobacco with a look of quiet bliss on his face; the Watcher might have considered that to be as inappropriate as the rest of his purloined trappings, except that he’d been a smoker once. He knew the euphoria of that moment – the sudden taste of smoke that you’d been yearning for for _hours._

“I will,” he said, lifting the proffered bottle and turning it so that he could study the label. “If you let me have one of those.”

Spike looked puzzled for a moment, his fingers tugging the slender tube from his lips. He breathed out a soft plume of smoke, looked down at the cigarette, then passed it over with a knowing grin. “Knock yourself out,” he said.

The scent of the lit cigarette was sweet and sharp all at once, a breath of bite and balm that spoke to long-abandoned habits and triggered memories of equally long-abandoned indulgences. It rolled between the Watcher’s fingers with languid ease, and settled between his lips with the softness of a comforting kiss. “For _that,_ ” Giles considered wryly, taking a moment to draw in as deep a lungful of smoke as his battered body could bear, “I’d need a completely different kind of cigarette.”

“Yeah, right,” the vampire started to scoff. “You and the wacky baccy? I don’t think … so …” His voice tailed off under the look he was getting – a patient, world weary look, weighted with bitter experience. Giles anchored the cigarette at the corner of his mouth, freeing his hand to twist the top from the Scotch with a practised flick. He tossed the cap away without a moments thought and tugged the burning tobacco from his lips, briefly lifting the whisky in a reverential salute. “ _Buffy,_ ” he declared a little brokenly - and tipped a generous chug of the time mellowed liquor down his throat, drinking straight from the bottle as if it were no more than water and he a man dying of desperate thirst.

It hit right where he wanted it – liquid fire burning down his throat and into his stomach, a punch of warmth that slammed straight into the pain in his guts with about as much subtlety as a blow from a troll hammer - or Xander’s wrecking ball. 

“Bloody hell.” Spike’s soft exclamation held disconcerted surprise. “Show it some respect, Rupes. This is the good stuff, remember?”

“Yes,” Giles gasped, gulping for air and watching his ceiling reel and sway above him. “Quite.” His eyes were watering and it took a moment to blink the sudden surge of moisture away. “ _Lord,_ but that’s smooth.”

“Yeah?” The vampire took the bottle from his outstretched hand and tipped it back to check the label. “I should damn well think so.” He held the pose for a moment, studying the way the light from the lamps gleamed in the depths of the amber liquid as he twisted it this way and that. 

“A being breathing thoughtful breath,” he quoted softly. “A traveller between life and death; the reason firm, the temperate will, endurance, foresight, strength, and skill …”

Giles shivered, hearing the weight of weariness behind the words. Not just the exhaustion of the day, but a hint of long, endless years, whispering from the lips of a man born when the poem was new. “A perfect woman, nobly planned, to warn, to comfort, and command …” Spike’s voice tailed off, the words drying in his mouth, and his lips quivering around the final word.

”And yet,” the Watcher completed, picking up the verse with reverence, “a spirit still, and bright, with something of angelic light.”

“ _Buffy,_ ” came the toast – and it was the vampire’s turn to chug and swallow, his head thrown back so he could get the maximum effect. There were, Giles decided after a moment or two of watching the whisky go down, some definite advantages in not having to breathe ...

“ _Oh,_ yeah,” Spike growled eventually, taking one last, convulsive gulp. “ _Real_ smooth.” He offered the bottle back, and Giles took a second, slightly less desperate swig.

“She did, you know,” he observed, savouring the mellowness of the burn and the way the spirit and the smoke had begun to buzz through his veins.

“Did what?” Spike waved at him to keep the bottle and lifted the other one from the floor beside him.

“Have a … light, about her.”

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, she did.” The vampire had lifted the cigarette from his lips so that he could drink; now he abstractedly tapped the gathering ash into the chalice and lifted the fragile tube back to draw in another breath of smoke. “Not fucking fair, is it,” he murmured softly, staring at the glowing tip of the tobacco. “Ya fight the big bad, win the freaking day – and there’s nothing but pain and bleeding misery at the end of it all. If this is what being a fucking White Hat’s all about, you can bloody well forget it. It ain’t worth it.” He took another swig of whisky – a short one this time – and glared at the Watcher over the mouth of the bottle, as if daring him to deny it.

“Not worth it?” Giles returned the glare with a bemused frown. He pulled in his own lungful of nicotine and tar and let it out with a slow breath, the movement of his lips sending shadows dancing through the smoke. “Of _course_ it’s worth it. Has to be. Because …”

_Because if it isn’t …_

Once again, he struggled for words; words to give some sense, some meaning to the events of the day. There were no words he could find to define the savage grief which gnawed at his soul - only feelings: the deep, terrifying dread that had convinced him to commit murder for the sake of the world, the cold, choking realisation that all their efforts had been too little, too late – and the splintering, heartbreaking memory of the price his Slayer had chosen to pay. 

“If it _isn’t,_ ” he managed, taking another gulp of whisky to smooth some of the sudden roughness from his voice, “then there was no point in running, no point in fighting the knights, no point … to any of it,” he concluded brokenly. “We might as well have given Glory the Key the day we …”

“Screw _that,_ ” Spike growled, a sudden flare of yellow tainting his eyes. “I didn’t get myself beaten to a bloody pulp just for the sake of my health …” He trailed off. Giles was considering him with weary patience, waiting for him to work it out – waiting for him to remember why he had endured Glory’s punishment instead of saving his own selfish skin 

“Oh,” the vampire realised, shifting a little self consciously and taking his own quick mouthful of liquor. “ _Right._ Got it. Gotta be worth it.” He paused, giving the wounded and weary Watcher a long. hard look. “Still sucks, though.”

Giles sighed, tipping his head back into the cushions and letting his eyes close; the warmth of the whisky was swirling through him, sending his senses dancing. Hard liquor, blood loss and stupidly powerful painkillers – and there was still too much to feel, too much to bear.

“Quite,” he breathed, and took another long, numbing drag on the cigarette, imagining the smoke surging into his lungs and then seeping out again, through the innumerable cracks in his heart and soul. 

Doing the right thing was hard. He knew that. Had known it ever since the day he’d been forced to murder a friend in order to save the world from his own stupidity. He’d tried – dear Lord, he’d _tried_ – to ease the way for his Slayer, help her to have a life, conspired with her to construct and maintain the fragile illusion of home and family. A normal world. An ordinary life.

For a very, very extraordinary young woman.

He’d seen her grow. Watched her blossom. Observed her as she’d changed from flippant child to responsible adult. And – in the end – he’d been witness to her death, the way so many Watchers had borne witness over the centuries. _They gave their lives to save the world._

The world, on the whole, went on.

But living in it … that was going to be the hardest thing of all.

Silence fell over the room. A muffled, weighty silence, one punctuated by the occasional soft breath or throaty gulp. The air slowly filled with smoke. When the cigarette in the Watcher’s hand burnt down to a nub, the vampire simply lit another and handed it to him without comment. When the vampire tilted the bottle and found it empty, the Watcher merely pointed to the liquor cabinet, sending him to fetch a bottle of much younger Scotch to tempt his palate. They didn’t need conversation – didn’t really want it after that initial exchange of words. They shared the liquor, they shared the tobacco, and they shared the grief, a burden neither of them would have had the strength to carry alone.

Not that night.

That night there were raw wounds to salve and bleeding hearts to cauterise; damage shared by the living and the dead. Two men in mutual concord, two hearts wracked with loss – and one weary, shattered soul . 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

O BEAUTY doomed and perfect for an hour,  
Leaping along the verge of death and night,  
You show me dauntless Youth that went to fight  
Four long years past, discovering pride and power. 

You die but in our dreams, who watch you fall  
Knowing that to-morrow you will dance again.  
But not to ebbing music were they slain  
Who sleep in ruined graves, beyond recall;  
Who, following phantom-glory, friend and foe,  
Into the darkness that was War must go,  
Blind; banished from desire.  
O mortal heart  
Be still; you have drained the cup; you have played your part. 

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). 


End file.
